Given last week’s desultory performance by new movies at the US box office, and some less-than-impressive openers this week, you can almost smell the “slump!” headlines being cooked up across the pond like a film-roasting barbeque. But it’s true: none of the new movies released this weekend managed to topple Shrek Forever Afterfrom its position atop the charts, where it held for a third week with $25.3 million. The ogre’s swan song (at least for now) has earned $183 million so far.

Still, Jonah Hill, Russell Brand and director Nicholas Stoller will be happy that Get Him To The Greek managed to snatch second, ahead of the much-maligned Killers, which Lionsgate didn’t screen for critics, but were okay with star Ashton Kutcher pirating. Greek took in $17.4 million, while Killers snagged $16.1 million.

Prince Of Persia sank 54% in its second weekend, dropping to fourth with $13.9 million and Sex And The City 2 rounded out the top five with $12.7 million. Not a bad hold for a film with buzz as bad as that one.

It’s in the rest of the top 10 we find the week’s other two openers lounging. Marmaduke has to hang its head like a dog that has crapped on the rug, arriving to $11.3 million in sixth place. That put it just ahead of Iron Man 2 in seventh, which made $7.8 million despite being in release for five weeks already.

And at eighth, Splice also badly underperformed, which seems a shame, given how well critics here liked it. The sci-fi thriller made just $7.4 million, which even with a $30 million price tag isn’t as healthy as it could be. Bringing up the rear, we find Robin Hood in ninth place ($5.1 million) and Letters To Juliet in 10th ($3 million).

Too bad about Splice. That's what they get for trying to release intelligent sci.fi/horror during the summer movie season. This thing is going to be massive on DVD when audiences finally catch up to it. More